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Tue, 26 Sep 2017 21:49:18 +0000Zend_Feedhttp://blogs.law.harvard.edu/tech/rsshttp://www.claringtonforge.com/blog/spring2017/?___SID=U
It’s getting to the time when many of us will be returning to our gardens. Planting new fruits and vegetables, flowers and herbs. It’s a special time when all your horticultural ideas are boundless. No pest have eaten your lettuces yet and the soil is a blank slate, so to speak.

I’m so excited to get back to planting and harvesting my own produce. It’s an especially exciting year here in California, with us getting so much rain this winter that we are not as restricted as in years past. I see homegrown Strawberries and Tomatoes in my future!

In order to facilitate these garden ambitions - I have found some cool new tools for working the soil.

First – Pedigree by Bulldog is a line of high quality Stainless Steel digging and cutting tools.

Their lightweight digging tools are strong, and exceed the bend test of 210 lbs. which is above the British Standard. The wooded Ash handles are FSC certified, and in keeping with the environmentally minded, these tools have a lifetime warranty. They will not end up in the landfill in a couple years, but be in your garden shed for years to come.

Second – Le Pale, a line of ergonomically, Swiss designed, handheld shovels which is Made in Italy.

These are incredibly constructed by skilled craftspeople and has the leverage capacity of 228 lbs. The shape of the head is similar to that of a large mechanical digger – and when scooping soil or other substance, there no spillage and the scooping action is done with little heft from the gardener. Other jobs these can do are lifting pavers and large logs. It’s a super cool items which I’m thrilled to offer. Check out the videos of them in action. https://vimeo.com/198881795

The most important thing is to get out and garden – please send me your photos too! I love to share them on Facebook and Instagram.

Beautifully hand-made by skilled craftspeople in Sussex, England. The trugs and sturdy and extremely useful for harvesting or carrying tools from one part of your garden to another. Any Mom would feel special owning one.

A friend of my mom's has a huge pantry that, when I was young, was always filled with things she canned herself. It would always amaze me how everything had a hand written label. Sometimes I think to myself, on the train to work after dropping my two young kids off at school, how nice it would be to have pantry like that. So, I started thinking of all the small things I could do to be sure that every meal I make contains a little something from my garden.

Now with fall approaching, I’d like to share a few ideas for gathering the bounty of the summer garden and making it last through winter

Drying herbs

Herbs are such a staple in any style of cooking. Fresh is best, but home dried is so much better than store bought. Who knows when those jarred and boxed herbs were picked and how long they have been sitting on the shelf? To dry my own herbs I take a small, round hanging drier from the dollar store (looks like a wheel with crocodile clips hanging from it), and make bouquets out of bunches of fresh herbs which I affix to the drier with small lengths of jute. Place the drier in a non-humid space – a pantry, a cupboard or whatever, and wait. Once all the moisture has dried from the herbs (this can take a couple of weeks depending on the moisture content of the herb), untie the bouquet and crumble the dried herb into clean, dry jam jars. These will last you until the fresh herbs are ready to harvest next year.

Flavored salts

Seasoning, is, of course, essential for turning your average meal into a culinary masterpiece. An easy (though, if you buy from the store, expensive), way of adding different flavors to dishes is by adding a pinch of a flavored salt. These really only take a moment to make but taste wonderful.

Herbs, like Rosemary, Basil, Thyme and Lavender work great in salts but so do the more substantial garden harvests such as onion, garlic and even home dried tomato*.

In a jar, simply combine 5 parts salt to 1 part flavoring. Be sure that everything is dry or you'll have clumpy salt.

*recipe to follow.

Drying.

I invested in a food dehydrator a few years ago, which is a really easy way of preserving surplus. Basically all you need to do is wash your produce, and cut it (if needed), place it on the drying rack and plug it in. Our grape vine went crazy this year, and for a couple weeks we had more grapes than we could eat . So I threw them in the dehydrator. Now we have a large container of raisins for the coming months. Driers can be used for a whole bunch of things from vegetable chips to beef jerky to fruit leather.

This dried tomato recipe is one of my favorites.

Cut your tomatoes into bite sized pieces, and place in a large mixing bowl. Cover with red wine - Two Buck Chuck or similar works just fine. Leave covered, overnight in the refrigerator. Next day, take the tomatoes from the wine (if you don’t want to waste the wine it works perfect for making Bolognese sauce) - arrange the tomatoes on the racks of the dehydrator, and sprinkle with salt (preferably herb salt), and leave to dry. Once they are dried place them in storage container. If you want to get fancier still, you can pack them in oil. Dip each tomato in white vinegar for a few seconds, and place in jar half filled with olive oil. Both the vinegar and the oil are tasty in salad dressings or pasta dishes.

Jarring and Canning

Jarring and canning can look daunting at first but is incredibly simple so long as you observe basic rules of preserving hygiene. I canned some tomatoes just this weekend - the recipe I had was for green tomatoes but I used any ripe ones from my raised beds. I chopped the tomatoes, being careful to save all the juice, packed them into sterilized jars leaving about an inch of space at the top, added a pinch of salt, a squeeze of lemon juice and topped with the reserved juice until the liquid covered the tomatoes (you can use water if you don’t have enough juice). I loosely screwed the tops on and placed in a water bath brought to a boil, lowered to a simmer and left for 15 minutes. Once removed from the water bath I tightened the tops. Be sure the lids don't pop up – this means they didn’t seal properly. They will still be fine to eat but should be put in the refrigerator and consumed within two weeks. If sealed correctly, home canned tomatoes will last 6 months or more on the shelf.

I have acquired many canning books over the years but these are the ones I always seem to come back to for idea and techniques

Can it, Bottle it, Smoke it by Karen Solomon. This covers so many different subjects, and I love that she gives you a time commitment for each recipe.

River Cottage Preserves Handbook by Pam Corbin. She give a lot of information while removing the mystique.

]]>Thu, 28 Aug 2014 20:30:16 +0000http://www.claringtonforge.com/blog/holiday2013/?___SID=U
We will be taking some time off from 12/23/13 - 01/02/14. During the break - you can send us an email at info@claringtonforge.com and we will get back to you the first week of January.

Have a wonderful holiday.

]]>Mon, 23 Dec 2013 18:22:40 +0000http://www.claringtonforge.com/blog/GreenCompass/?___SID=U
We are based in a more industrial part of the beautiful city of San Francisco, so we are not always exposed to as much nature as we would like. Imagine our excitement when Green Compass Mobile Greenhouse came to pay us a visit yesterday. They were in the Bay Area teaching elementary school children the importance of sustainable food, and the coolest part is the kids are able to see firsthand how food is grown. You can find out more about them at http://compassgreenproject.org/

Here are some photos from their visit – when they came to say hi and pick up some new tools. Our neighbors from the fantastic michaeldaigian.com floral design, couldn't resist a peek too.

]]>Thu, 14 Nov 2013 19:23:32 +0000http://www.claringtonforge.com/blog/Contest_winners/?___SID=U
Thanks to all who sent in their photos. I was both amazed and inspired at the entries we received, and found choosing a winner to be very difficult indeed. So I chose two winners! Connie M. spent 10 years transforming a grassy yard into a garden full of whimsy. Susan S. of The Lord's Acre in Fairview N.C. showed us that a small plot of land could help many in their community.

Connie's garden of whimsy

Susan from Lord's Acre

]]>Tue, 01 Oct 2013 17:11:36 +0000http://www.claringtonforge.com/blog/Summer2013/?___SID=U
Over the summer my husband has taken our small front garden, and turned it into what I've termed "Tomato-Topia". We are now up to 100 pounds of tomatoes, and still going storng. Below you will find before and after photos of our Tomato Place.

We here, at Clarington, would love to see what you have been growing this summer in your gardens. Send us your photos and stories, and our favorite will receive a $50.00 Clarington credit, and be featured on our blog.

My helpers are using one of our English trugs to gather the harvest. We have a limited supply of trugs on hand, which you can see here.

]]>Wed, 28 Aug 2013 20:49:03 +0000http://www.claringtonforge.com/blog/rabbiting-spade/?___SID=U
Moving plants from one place to another is risky. There’s a 50/50 chance of survival with many plants, and as we dive into the process, we go in knowing it may not end well. It helps to know that every job has the perfect tool, and with my trusty new Rabbiting Spade from Clarington Forge, I felt confident to face those dicey transplanting odds.

The Rabbiting Spade cuts easily into the soil in tight spaces around the base of the plant. We were moving an Apricot Mallow, a California Native, to make room for a Jerusalem Sage (another native). First, however, we had to dig out several dead plants.

The spade slid into the soil and we were able to lift the entire root ball without hassle. We dug the new hole with the same spade in close quarters with a rosemary shrub. It was no trouble at all.

The whole operation took less than 15 minutes to remove the dead plants, move the Apricot Mallow from one place to another, and dig a hole to plant the new Jerusalem Sage. Once transplanted, we watered our plants deeply and crossed our fingers for the best of odds. Regardless whether they make it, we look forward to years of use from this Rabbiting Spade.

Christy Wilhelmi, author of Gardening for Geeks,empowers people to grow their own food, to be more self-reliant, and to reduce pollution and waste, one garden at a time. Christy is founder of Gardenerd (gardenerd.com), the ultimate resource for garden nerds, where she publishes information-packed monthly newsletters, weekly blog posts, and podcasts. She also specializes in small-space, organic vegetable garden design and consulting. Christy has been a board member of Ocean View Farms Organic Community Garden in Mar Vista, California since 1999, and gardens almost entirely with heirloom vegetables. Between 70-80 percent of her family’s produce comes from her garden of less than 200 square feet. Her writing has appeared in Edible Los Angeles magazine, Edible Westside magazine, The Good Food Blog, and LowImpactLiving.com and the Mar Vista Farmers’ Market Wrap-Up for Patch.com.

]]>Mon, 13 May 2013 18:50:52 +0000http://www.claringtonforge.com/blog/drunken-botanist/?___SID=U
As a fan of Amy Stewart and a good cocktail, I am excited to read Amy's new book the Drunken Botanist. When I saw she was touring for her new book I hoped she would plan a stop in Philadelphia but it was not to be. Then yesterday morning I turned on my radio and discovered an hour long interview with Amy on Radio Times, a wonderful program produced by NPR station WHYY here in Philadelphia. Here is the link to this interesting and very enjoyable hour of radio: